Oliver Schneider

Postdoctoral Scholar studying HCI, Haptics, & Design.

About

I research, design, and develop tools that empower users to work with new technologies. As technology becomes more physical, interactive, and intelligent, we need better capabilities to create for and with it. I am driven to understand how to creatively work with interactive physical-digital systems, especially those that engage users through multiple senses.

I am currently a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Hasso Plattner Institute working with Patrick Baudisch. My PhD is from UBC, where I worked with Karon MacLean to establish the field of Haptic Experience Design, improving how designers can create touch-based experiences from rumble feedback in a smartphone to immersive augmented-reality experiences.

My main research interests are:

Haptics and multimodal interfaces. Humans live in a rich world with many senses, yet technology barely engages beyond screens. I believe touch-based feedback & physical user interfaces are critical to improving our relationship with the digital world.

Creativity-support tools. While apps are getting better at supporting simple tasks, it is challenging to help creative processes like the design of new experiences in VR and AR.